


kiss me hard before you go

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Break Up, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 00:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14659779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Carlotta isn't sure how to go about retiring. It will be hard to leave the Opera Populaire. It will be harder to leave Christine Daae.





	kiss me hard before you go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ponderinfrustration](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/gifts).



If there was a protocol to retirement, Carlotta didn’t know what it was. Usually for her it ran like this: she got fed up with something at the opera house, she threatened to retire, she took a day or so off, and she came back in, accepted a few apologies, and pretended the whole thing never happened. Retirement was like the gun you held to someone’s head, pretending it was loaded, never firing. She’d seen other women retire, of course, but never paid it much heed.

So when she finally decided she really was going to retire, she wasn’t sure how to go about it.

The first person she told was Piangi. “I think I will not renew my contract for the next season.”

He looked at her with concern. “Has something been bothering you, piccolina?”

He always used such pet names with her, even now that she was far too old for them. And he always knew when she was serious. “No, it is nothing. It is only a decision I have reached on my own.”

“Ah.” He frowned. “I didn’t know you were thinking about such things.”

“For months now.” She shrugged. “I am getting old.”

“The audience doesn’t think so. The managers do not think so. And I, the incomparable Ubaldo Piangi…”

She swatted his arm. “Silly man. _I_ think so. I can feel it in my bones.” And frankly, when a woman started feeling her bones at all, it became a little difficult to carry on with daily rehearsals and singing strongly enough to fill a theater with the sound.

Slowly, he nodded. “Who have you told so far?”

“Only you.”

After him she told the managers, who assumed it was her usual unloaded gun of a complaint. They begged her to tell them what was wrong (primadonna, please!) and she repeated again and again: Nothing, nothing, nothing, but she would accept her final check at the end of the month and she would not be returning for the next season. For reasons that were quite frankly none of their business. It was one thing to admit to Piangi that she might be getting old; it was quite another to admit it to the likes of Andre and Firmin. She preferred not to.

Firmin said, as she headed out of the meeting, “Well, I suppose we can replace you well enough with La Daae.”

He seemed to think it would bother her, that she would throw a fit of jealousy and perhaps decide to stay.

She smiled back at him. Now that she would no longer be the diva extraordinaire, she could afford to be kind. “I’m sure she’ll be wonderful.”

And it was true. Carlotta had known Christine for years now—known her more intimately perhaps than anyone else at the opera house. She’d given her all the knowledge she had of how the business was done and watched her grow from ingénue to skilled socialite. Christine could handle herself. Christine would do marvelously.

Of course, that didn’t mean Christine would like it, Carlotta leaving. Carlotta would have to figure out some tactful way to tell her.

Except, as days and weeks passed by, she was still at a loss.

* * *

 

It felt like ages since Carlotta had last managed to get Christine alone. She pushed into her dressing room without announcing herself—it was as much her territory as Christine’s these days—to find Jammes leaned up against the wall talking to Christine.

“…and she has family off in the country, and I’m sure…oh, hello Carlotta.” Jammes stumbled back, grinned a little too wide and gave a small wave. “We were just talking about your retirement.”

“Oh, is that common knowledge now?”

“Well, news gets around.” Jammes shrugged, and when Carlotta said nothing further, she slipped past her into the hall, calling, “Later, Christine.”

Carlotta turned to Christine. But Christine was wiping makeup off her face and didn’t look away from the mirror. “So you finally decided to come by.”

“We talked yesterday.”

“Backstage, yes. For about five minutes. You’re always busy…”

“I think we both know the busy one lately is you.”

Christine didn’t answer.

“Jammes told you I’m planning on retiring,” Carlotta said.

“No.”

“No?”

“Jammes expanded on the rumors. I heard you were retiring two weeks ago from the managers, who wanted to know if I think I can sing a good Sieglinde next season. Because you won’t be available.”

“Ah.”

Christine put down her makeup cloth. “So I told them, of course I can sing Sieglinde.”

“Well, that’s true.” Carlotta puts her hands on Christine’s shoulders. “You’ll be an excellent…”

Christine pushed her off. “If you think there’s a single person in the opera house who doesn’t know by now, you’re an idiot. You know how fast news travels. When were you planning on telling me?” She looked up with raised eyebrows.

She was getting more and more imperious these days. More and more like Carlotta. Sometimes Carlotta understood why people were so scared of her. “I was trying to figure out how.”

“And why is that? Because you thought it might be difficult to tell your lover you were planning on abandoning her to live in the country?”

She really was going to move to the country. While she’d considered staying in Paris, life was much too expensive here when she would be living off her savings and perhaps a modest job. “Querida, you blow things out of proportion.”

“And yet I’m not incorrect, am I?”

Carlotta blew out a breath. “No. But we both knew this was going to happen. I am not as young as I once was.”

“I could have done with some warning. You wanted to drop me and sneak out…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That would hardly have worked.”

“I can’t deal with you right now.” Christine shook her head. “We’ll talk later. For now, I want some privacy.”

“Christine, you must…”

“Out!” She waved a hand.

And what did “later” mean? Not that day, and apparently not the next either, or the next aftr that. Christine was polite in public but every time Carlotta came to see her she said she wasn’t ready yet, and when Carlotta sent her a reluctantly apologetic letter it went ignored.

Carlotta confided to Piangi, “I feel like some god up there is seeing justice done for every fit I ever pitched in my career.”

“There is only one God, mia bella.”

Piangi was religious. Carlotta rolled her eyes. “This is not the time for your theologizing, Piangi.”

“You want La Daae to forgive you.”

“I’m not even sure what the offense is. Everyone knew I had to retire soon. And it’s not like I had told anyone else in the opera house, you excepted. And I was going to tell her, and I’ve told her that. She simply doesn’t listen.”

“Well,” Piangi said, rubbing his beard, “if you were my wife…”

“I am hardly Christine’s wife.”

“…and you intended to end your career and move out into the countryside, I would hope to be warned. After all, it’s possible I would want to go with you.”

“Christine has a career here, with years to go. She is the diva. She would not want to leave it, nor would I want her to.”

“Still, it would be good to be offered the choice.”

Carlotta shook her head. “You’re sentimental. But Christine and I, we are women of the world. We’re practical. She would never leave the Opera Populaire for me, and that’s how it should be.”

“Still, you might have asked her.”

“What would be the point in that?” Carlotta sighed. “To make her be the one to say no? And me the one who has to hear it? No, darling. It’s much better like this. And she’ll get over it.”

“If you say so.”

All week, Carlotta couldn’t get Christine to talk to her alone. Once or twice when she walked up to Christine talking to another girl, Christine would curl her arm around the girl’s waist and look at Carlotta inquisitively, as if to ask her why she was even trying. She was beginning to wonder that herself.

* * *

 

Even Christine, a woman of great fortitude and greater fury, tired eventually. Or perhaps it was simply that she, unlike Carlotta, had a tendency toward mercy. It did crop up at times.

Whatever the reason, on the second to last night of the opera’s run, she came by Carlotta’s room at last. “You didn’t come to see me tonight.”

“I thought you wanted space.”

“I did. But I’ve worked it all out now. So you needn’t worry about me any longer.”

It sounded like a rejection. Carlotta bit her lip. Stupid to worry about such a thing—she was leaving in only a few weeks anyhow, why should it make a difference to her? The one leaving was her, not Christine.

Christine’s hand lingered on the doorknob. “I’ll come by your apartment tonight.”

“We should drive there together then. I’ll pay for the cab…”

“Surely you’re saving up for your little house in the countryside.” Her tone was acerbic. “I’ll come by. Wait for me.”

So Carlotta did. She hurried home as soon as possible—Christine would probably take her sweet time but there was no way Carlotta wouldn’t be ready for her—and took out a bottle of wine and a couple glasses, and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Christine arrived only in the early morning hours. And it appeared she would not be needing the wine, because her cheeks were bright and she smelled a little of alcohol already. Carlotta brought her over to the couch. “You didn’t walk here unescorted?”

“No, no, no…Monsieur de Chagny…”

The Vicomte. Carlotta hadn’t heard Christine talk about him in years, to her at least, but it still made her scowl. “Oh. You were with him?”

“We’re still friends, Carlotta. With the month I’ve been having I need my friends.” She leaned back on the couch and balled her fists in her skirt. “After all, it seems I won’t have you anymore.”

“You aren’t being fair to me, Christine.”

“ _I’m_ not being fair to _you_?”

“What am I supposed to do? Stay in Paris forever for your sake?”

“No, I suppose. Of course not.” She stared at the wall, where Carlotta had hung a cheap portrait of the two of them, commissioned from a poor artist they met at a bar several years back. “Of course not.”

“Christine…” _I love you. Really I do_. Those were the only words that came to mind, and saying them had smoothed over many arguments before. But this wasn’t exactly an argument, and Carlotta suspected the words would hurt more than they’d help. She trailed off, and let Christine take it as she would.

“Well, there’s no point in talking about it now, is there?” Christine was suddenly brisk, though her tone was still a bit slurred. “I didn’t come over for that.”

“What did you come over for, then?”

She kissed Carlotta on the lips, biting down a little too roughly, not as careful as she might be usually. “I came to fuck you. What did you expect?”

It was maybe the one time in her life Carlotta would rather have talked. But Christine was already unlacing her dress and pulling at it, and she could never say no to Christine. Besides, she had little left to say.

She let Christine take control. Not the usual, for her. She liked to be the one to lead, to touch, to control. When they first got together she spent weeks, months, mapping out Christine’s body, worshipping it inch by inch, learning where to touch and kiss for the greatest effect. She only let Christine reciprocate little by little, unsure at first how much she was willing to give the girl, and then eventually giving her everything. Tonight, again, she gave her everything. Or rather, Christine took. But Carlotta let her.

Christine would not be able to keep her, so tonight it was only right to give her what she could.

It was late. Very late, and Carlotta should have gone to bed. Tomorrow was her last show, and she had barely thought about that all evening and night because she was too worried about Christine coming to visit. She would get no sleep at this rate. She might give a less than peak performance. But at least she had performed for Christine, and Christine seemed sated.

They rolled into bed together, and Carlotta took comfort in the familiarity of Christine’s body, the warmth of her forgiveness. Again, she wanted to talk, find out if that forgiveness was real or just an illusion born of a moment’s release. But Christine fell asleep before she could find the words and again, she wondered if there really were any words for what she wanted to say to this woman.

Christine woke earlier too, because Carlotta woke to an empty bed. There was a note left on the table about needing to go to work. As if she needed to be there any earlier than Carlotta.

She did not avoid Carlotta for that last performance. Not really. She smiled at Carlotta, and didn’t dodge her gaze. She didn’t flirt with other girls, either—not that Carlotta could see. But still, Carlotta could already feel the distance. Even onstage, performing together, she felt that distance more keenly than the notes in her own throat. The applause, the calls for an encore, meant nothing to her.

There was a party held in her honor that night at a local tavern. She went, of course. Christine went too. It was a good party. She played queen and hostess less than she usually might have, but that was fine.

She told Christine, “I’ll be in town another couple weeks. We still have to move out my things. You should stay with me. I could use help packing.”

Christine sighed. “No, I can’t stay.”

“Why? Something with Monsieur de Chagny again?”

“Don’t be mean.” She took Carlotta’s hand. “Tonight, I’ll walk you home. But I can’t stay.”

The streets were quiet. Carlotta’s place was much too close, and Christine still didn’t seem to want to talk. Carlotta tried to find the words at last. “I’ll come back to Paris sometimes. To visit.”

“Ah, try keeping you away.”

“You can come to my house in the country, too, if you want.”

“Perhaps I’ll visit sometimes.”

All very noncommittal. And at the stairs to Carlotta’s building, Christine stopped and stood on the street. “I’m not coming up.”

“I’ll be here another two weeks.”

“I think we should be done, Carlotta. We really are done already, aren’t we?”

Those were the words, maybe. Words she hadn’t wanted to say. “Christine…”

Christine kissed her on the lips, long and hard. Then she turned away and without saying goodbye, walked out into the dark street alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "kiss me hard before you go, Christine/Carlotta" from littlelonghairedoutlaw via tumblr. I've always wanted to write a fic where Carlotta got to peacefully retire, but this one's a bit angstier than I planned. Maybe another day...  
> Comments are much appreciated. Or come talk to me on tumblr at convenientalias.


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